Thursday, September 20, 2012

Autumn officially kicks off on Saturday
September 22nd!The first
thing that comes to mind when I think of autumn is apples.

The scent of a cinnamon apple pie baking in
the oven.School trips to apple orchards.Apple jelly, apple butter, apple-cider donuts—Lord,
if you haven’t had one of these, you need to get to your nearest apple orchard ASAP
and try one.

Before I moved from the Chicago suburbs to Phoenix,
my former high-school friends and I met at the Edwards Orchards in Poplar Grove, Illinois,
for an afternoon of apple-shopping fun.

We strolled through the over 100-year-old
dairy barn that had been converted into a gift shop.Everything you can imagine made from an apple
or having a picture of an apple on it could be found in this barn.Cosmetics, dishes, souvenirs, candles, salsas,
linens and hundreds of other gifts.We purchased our cider-apple donuts and watched
young girls make the donuts in the barn kitchen then we checked out the hayloft
and the display of farm antiques before eating lunch at a local café.

Each September I feel a little nostalgic as I
remember that visit to the apple farm. But it's also a time for me to celebrate friendships. Whenever I eat an apple-cider donut, I remind myself
how blessed I am to have been able to maintain a friendship for over thirty years with the girls I
went to high school with.

What do you do to celebrate the changing of
summer to fall where you live?

Monday, September 17, 2012

As an author involved—and in love—with the written word, I'll confess math isn't one of my favorite subjects.

It's not much of a strong point for me, either. But when it comes to tips and tax and sale discounts, I could always calculate them in my head. On paper, I could do long division and multiply numbers of multiple digits. Yes, I rock. (grin) Or at least, I did when I could do those things once upon a time.

Not any more. Guess why.

............

Give up?

I put a shortcut to a calculator on my desktop computer and found out how to program a speed button for the calculator on my phone. Since then, my love of technology—related to math, anyhow—has increased in proportion to the dwindling of my mathematical skills.

It's scary, especially when I'm at a year-end clearance sale, for instance, where you really have to be quick on your feet and in your head.

Even simple numbers, like passwords, are going the way of the long division problems. Okay, that's because I have approximately 732 passwords to remember, some of which only get used every six months to a year or so. And I realize that's not exactly a matter that requires mathematical computation, but still...they're numbers, you know? LOL

Speaking of which...for every person I'm in frequent contact with and/or want to be able to reach in a hurry, I make sure to keep the phone number very handy.

On my contacts list—in my cell phone.

Yes, of course, I keep backups. At home. But if I'm on the run and the battery bottoms out...or the cell phone dies...or there's an accident and the phone's demolished...

Think about these things for a minute. Seriously.

When's the last time you did anything more than a simple math calculation by hand or in your head?

And what if an emergency occurred and you needed to reach someone in an instant?

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